Discussions By Condition: Liver conditions

Mild Fatty Liver - Can Mild Upper Right Abdominal Pain be the ONLY Symptom?

Firstly thank you to all who take the time to read my post and a bigger thanks to those who take the time to reply.

About 2 weeks ago I started to get mild to moderately intense pain in the upper right quadrant of my abdomen. When this pain was at it's most intense I would also feel pain in my right testicle.

The main location of the pain is the space between the bottom of my rib cage and top of my pelvis. This pain feels like is coming from the inside and occasionally it can feel "squirmy". The tends to "wander" around a bit. Sometimes it can be felt just to the right of my navel. When the pain is near my navel the pain is more like a burning or stinging sensation.

The average level of the pain has subsided but I still have an almost contsant dull ache.

After visits to my doctor and hepatologist and a number of tests (see results at end of post) the only thing was found was evidence of mild fatty liver. Both doctor and specialist believe that the pain could NOT be caused by the fatty liver and is probably muscular in origin.

One other bit of possibly relevant history is that over the last 2-3 months I have been taking 50mg of Voltaren twice a day to treat some neck pain and 1-2 Valarian Forte herbal tablets a few times per week to help me sleep. Also my intake of coffee and alcohol went up slightly. Coffee was 3-4 espresso per day and doctor said my level of alcohol consumption was low. Is it possible that all of these things may have "stressed" my liver and thus cause the pain?

Does the diagnosis of the doctor and specialist sound right? Could my pain be just muscular? Could the mild fatty liver actually be asymptomatic and just something they found because they happened to do the ultrasound? Should I seek a second opinion from another specialist?

4 Replies:

Hi there,I'm 28 and female.History:Nov '08: Pain in kidney area+lower back (right side), diagnosed with kidney infection- strong anti-biotics. Background pain remained.Dec '08: Pain worse, spread to right lower abdomen, upper thigh, pain/fullness in upper addomen. Referred to Urologist.TESTSUrine: pus present Ultrasound:kidney/bladder - fineBlood: inflammation. White blood cells high. X-ray: fine, no kidney/gall bladder stonesCT: Unusually enlarge liver- right kidney much lower than left. Jan '09: Cystoscopy ruled out bladder problems. Referred to liver specialist.Feb '09: Liver physician.TESTSUltrasound: large liver, raised, expanded to left side. Malaise, fatty.Blood tests: No hepititis. High liver enzymes, high ALT. Inflammation found. No diabetes, blood sugar levels healthy.Physician has no answers, says it's rare. I am overweight, not big drinker, diet healthy + diverse but quantities could be reduced. Liver biopsy is the next step of the investigation...in a few days.Surrounding area of liver -swollen, painful. Urologist says pain caused by liver pushing down on right kidney. Liver physician- disagrees, believes inflammation/swelling of liver does not cause pain.Current symptoms:Pain under right rib cageRaised swelling in right rib area moves to side, spreads to middle of back. Sore, achey, Spongy/bruised to touch Bubbling sensation under right rib and back. FatiguedNotes to add:2 years on Dianette (oral contraceptive pill) Sertraline 100mg (anti-depressant) daily since Oct '08. My research:1. Link between Setraline and toxic effect on liver. But, specialist tells me I would have hepititis if enlargement was toxicity-related. 2. PCOS and NAFLD (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease). I was diagnosed with PCOS 2 years ago.3. Link between Dianette and Major Depression and toxic effect on the liver.I saw my GP (General Doctor) a few days ago and he was frustrated as he's had no correspondence from my physician asking to investigate whether my condition was toxicity related (Dianette/Sertraline). He was fuming that they were sending me for a biopsy without ruling out all other avenues of investigation. Now I'm confused and worried about doing the biopsy! I have much pain in the area they need to do surgery, so the liver physician is concerned the pain felt in that area will be considerably uncomfortable.ANY advice - hugely appreciated.Many thanks,Totallybaffled

Unfortunately your pain sounds a lot like mine. Its from fibromyalgia. You may have that early setting it. It causes sleeping problems, wide spread pain, im willing to bet that pain in your neck is at least 6 trigger points. The pain near your groin could b bladder problems. Go to web md and read the symptoms for yourself. I am having similar pains with mine because i have fibro. However i know before i realized i had it, i had one simple problem, pcod with a cyst rupturing on a blood vessel, and it blew it up to where i couldnt sit for longer than 30 min with increased pain and cannot excercise without swelling. Caffine/sugars all increase muscular pain. I hope everything works out. Hope im wrong.

Well, I had very similar symptoms that developed into fibromyalgia. Had two different doctors diagnose it as that...eventually stumbled across an article on liver flushes online and did one and the pain subsided some. After id done half dozen or so the pain was completely gone. So id say from my experience that yes, fatty liver could cause your muscle pain, and that liver flushes would be something you might want to try.